


Broken Teacup

by Nekositting



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Adopted Siblings, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Alternate Universe - Step Siblings, Control, Corruption, Dark, Disturbing Themes, Dubious Morality, Erotic Horror, F/M, Food Metaphors, Metaphors, Non-Linear Narrative, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Third Person Limited, Power Dynamics, Unreliable Narrator, referenced animal death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-20
Updated: 2018-11-29
Packaged: 2019-08-26 19:16:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 10,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16687402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Nekositting
Summary: Monsters weren’t real, but they didn’t need to be.People like Tom were far more terrifying.





	1. Bedtime Stories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The story I didn't want to tell but am forced to because of my wild imagination.
> 
> You're in for a ride.
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> **There is an 8-year difference between them. Although nothing sexual will occur while Hermione is still a minor, if this still makes you uncomfortable, I suggest that you do not proceed.**

“Are monsters real?”

Hermione knew the answer before he stopped reading, before he grabbed a bookmark from the desk and slipped it inside the heavy tome. He closed the book, and Hermione tried not to shift her feet when he settled the full brunt of his gaze on her.

There was nothing malicious in those depths. Nothing monstrous or haunting. Unlike the stories her mum would tell her about boogeymen and creatures waiting to grab her ankles. Their claws poised and ready to snatch her from underneath her bed.

Still, there was something about the darkness swirling in the boy’s eyes that always made her nervous. It always had, even after years of living with him.

But that was nothing new. Her adopted brother had always been strange. Older by only eight years, but still someone she respected as much as she dreaded. He always found a way to make her uncomfortable. Though how he managed without saying anything rude or untoward was still a mystery.

In spite of these flaws, however, Tom was still well-behaved. Kind, even when Hermione was certain he didn’t have to be. Incredibly smart, a person whose achievements she admired. A person she wanted to be like, even if he made her skin crawl at times with how he acted around her when he thought she wasn’t looking.

It made her want to impress him. Because he was just so smart. His brain fascinated her, made her want to pull apart the flaps and see for herself what was hidden inside. She couldn’t help it, really. Her parents just loved him, and teachers talked so nicely about him that she herself couldn’t find it within her to dislike him.

Against her better judgment, no less.

“No, little sister. They aren’t,” He said after a moment, his eyes gleaming brightly under the incandescent desk lamp. “They are stories meant to deter us from misbehaving.”

Hermione’s brow furrowed.

She didn’t know what the word deter meant. It hadn’t been in any of the books her mum had gotten her. It sounded advanced.

She didn’t want to ask Tom what it meant. It would show him that she wasn’t as bright as her teachers professed she was. It would make her look _dumb_ in front of her brother.

That was the last thing she wanted.

“Oh.”

It was the only response she could think of. She could piece the phrase together to mean that the tales of monsters were supposed to scare her and make her behave. But something about the way he was looking at her made her hesitate.

He was watching her closely, assessing her, as if he were truly seeing her for the first time.

She had always wanted her brother to notice her. He was always distant, even when living in the same house. Always so far away, his mind seemingly adrift, lost in a world she couldn’t follow.

But in that second, Hermione wasn’t sure she wanted the attention.

He looked…kind of scary.

“But people are much scarier than monsters,” He said, and Hermione’s stomach dropped at the way the corner of his lip lifted into a soft smile.

It was meant to be comforting, but it made her skin itch.

“Worse, in fact, than any of those children’s books you will ever read.”

Hermione flushed with embarrassment at the way his mouth twisted, sharp and pointed at the word “children.” His scorn was like a slap to the face because she herself was a _child_. Did that then mean that he found her repulsive? An embarrassment?

She didn’t like it.

She wanted to leave, but couldn’t find the courage to. He was looking at her and although that wasn’t a physical restraint, it certainly felt like one. She was rooted in place. His excited expression gave her little choice.

“Because monsters can be seen,” He continued, seemingly catching on to the irritation on her face. “They are grotesque. Ugly. Something you could spot without having to try at all.”

Hermione nodded slowly, ignoring the fact that she didn’t know what “grotesque” meant.

“With people, you don’t know what you’ll get. The most beautiful man, with the sweetest smile and kindest gaze, could be the monster mum has warned you of. More terrible than a villain you could read about.”

Hermione sucked in a sharp breath when her brother put the book down on the desk and turned to face her completely.

His eyes danced with something she could not name.

“Do you want to know why that is, little sister?”

It took her a moment to answer, overwhelmed by the spark of excitation that suddenly bloomed in her brother’s eyes. It floored her, robbed her entirely of her capacity to speak.

She nodded her head instead, not trusting herself to say something without embarrassing herself further.

“We invite those into our home. We eat with them. Play with them. Sleep in the same room as them. And we are unaware, blind to the horrors hidden behind their pretty smiles.”

Hermione’s heart accelerated in her chest when Tom grinned at her, all teeth. It was sweet and sugary. It lit up his face like a Christmas tree, made the ominousness within the black sparkle with amiability and comfort.

It was disconcerting how quickly he could go from terrifying to sweet. How he had done so in the span of a second as he explained how people, though not monsters, could be worse than them.

“Did that answer your question?”

Hermione clasped her hands together at her back, and shot him a nervous smile. It probably didn’t look nearly as nice as his.

“Yes, thank you, brother.”

Hermione didn’t wait for his reply.

She didn’t need to. She had known the answer from the very start, had known exactly what he was going to tell her and how, before she had knocked on his bedroom door.

Monsters weren’t real, but they didn’t need to be.

People like Tom were far more terrifying.


	2. Feast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Edited.

Hermione never could quite forget the way Tom’s eyes had sparkled with excitement when he’d talked to her about monsters.

It had left an impression on her that followed her beyond the veil of dreams. Sometimes lingering in the back of her mind when she passed by his bedroom door, the silence exuding from it both chilling and exciting all at once.

And yet, even with the image of his face branded in her memory, of the story he depicted for her impressionable mind, Hermione didn’t avoid him. In spite of this unease, the same one that chilled her to the marrow of her bones, she loved him as any sister would a brother.

He was brilliant. Too beautiful with his too wide smile and soft lips, no deterrent in spite of it all. Hermione still wanted to impress him, still wanted to _understand_ him, to be noticed by him.

If that meant following him into the dark, of her clasping her hand around his and letting him lead her through his abyss, then she’d gladly take it. She’d follow him to the ends of the Earth if that meant that she could yank out the secrets hidden behind the slant of his eyes, to be someone _worthy_ of his adoration.

So she confined herself in her room, and read and read, and _read_ until her eyes burned, until her hunger for knowledge and praise was consumed by a more confusing desire, one that at the time, she couldn't even begin to identify.

At least, not at first.

* * *

She was eleven when she learned Tom had a penchant for cooking. A flair, one had called it.

Her parents weren’t home, but he was. It was unsurprising, of course. He was the perfect caretaker when her parents were off on a business trip, learning more about their practice. Always available, always _there_ , willing and ready to be of assistance when it came to his younger sister.

At first, she hadn’t known what to make of it, unused to seeing him in front of an oven, his hands lifting and moving different utensils about as he cooked. It was always ever her mother, her sweet smiles and brilliant eyes, the first thing Hermione saw first thing in the morning or late in the afternoon when she returned from work.

But then, of course, it shouldn’t have been surprising to her. To see Tom there, to witness for herself just how easily, he too, could perform this role.

Tom was good at everything, had always been. Where Hermione struggled to improve, where she fought tooth and nail to understand a concept, Tom didn’t.

He was a prodigy, they had said. A natural.

Talented.

Hermione wanted to be _him_ and yet—

No. That wasn’t quite it. She didn’t want to be him, but—

To be noticed, to be seen, for all the hard work she put in. She wasn’t a natural, didn’t breathe the correct answer with every breath she exhaled, but she was _brilliant_. She was someone worth seeing, worth _noticing_.

The brightest girl of her age, they had called her.

Still, Tom outshone her.

Now graduated, an _adult_ by all accounts, he still managed to make her feel small, _less_ , without even trying. With just a glance, a small smile stretching along his face, he made her feel like nothing. And how she loathed it, hated _him_ for how inadequate he made her feel.

The fact that he was in the kitchen now was jarring, a shock to her senses because Tom didn’t belong there. Not quite.

Mum was the cook, was the master in this realm. He had no place there, wearing their— _no, not their, her, only ever her—_ mother’s apron around his waist. It made something wrench in her gut to see it.

“What would you like?” Tom asked her, tearing her away from her shock when he glanced over his shoulder and speared her with a look. It sliced through her like a hot blade to butter, unmade her. Hermione’s throat clamped shut, rendered speechless. Her disdain utterly forgotten.

“I’m afraid all we have is ground beef, but I will see what I can do if that is not something you’d like.”

It took her an embarrassingly long time to compose her, to come up with a response while beneath his scrutiny. But she did, she always did. Even if it had felt like an eternity before the words managed to dislodge from her esophagus with a burn across her cheeks. She refused to admit was a blush, however.

“Ah-er, yes, that’s fine, Tom.”

Tom didn’t look away from her for a moment, his eyes roving over her face, as if trying to lift some meaning or secret from her very brain. What that secret could be, what Tom was looking for, Hermione didn’t know. Even now, after years of this push and pull, she still didn’t understand him.

“Excellent. Then have a seat, it should be ready soon.”

Tom, finally, to her relief, turned away from her. Hermione released the breath she hadn’t known she was holding, her feet moving without her accord to the kitchen table.

They dragged her from where she’d stopped dead in her tracks in the kitchen entranceway. Her steps ringing like the loud pound of her heart in her ears.  Her cheeks were on fire, still ruddy with her embarrassment, but Hermione walked on as if she weren’t unsettled, uncertain, as she yanked a chair back and sat down.

The smart thing would have been to leave and avoid the tangible tension weighing on her shoulders. The same one that always lingered, that refused to abate whenever it was that they were together in a single room.

But no, that was not what she did.

She stayed and waited, the room falling into silence. All save for the sound of Tom rummaging in the kitchen, that was. The frying of something on the pan, of metal hitting metal as he stirred and moved about: all those noises remained, loud and grating against her eardrums.

Hermione waited anyway, her fingers smoothing over the polished surface of the table as she tried not to think about what he was doing. There was no telling how long she sat there, in silence, with Tom’s back turned to her. It could have been minutes, could easily have been hours—and to some degree, it certainly felt like it—where neither of them said a thing.

Until finally the clatter from the kitchen stopped, Tom’s shoulder blades jerked, and the spell that she’d been subjected to, broke. Tom turned around, the saucepan gripped in his hold steaming with heat.

For the first time that afternoon, the rich scent of cooked meat, onions, and spices flooded her.

Her mouth watered, hunger stirring to life in her belly when he drew closer and right at the center of the pan, cooked to perfection, was an omelette. Meat poked from the single opening in the roll, green onions and cheese melted over the sides of it like in all the cooking shows Hermione would often see with her mum and dad on Sunday mornings.

“Wow,” Hermione said, unable to stop herself from straightening her back to get a better look, to drink in the sight and the smell of it because it was—

It was _beautiful_. Just like everything he did. Just like _he_ was.

Was there nothing Tom couldn't do? Was everything he touched, everything he put his mind to, art personified? She doubted that there was anything at all. He was just bloody _perfect._

Fascination and awe and something she could not name bloomed in her chest. It was maddening, this feeling. It chewed and bit at her insides, it made her fingers tremble, her insides quake in an inexplicable way.

He was absolutely divine.

“That looks amazing, Tom.”

She was staring, she knew. Boring holes into the steaming pan, her stomach cramping with hunger, when he placed the saucepan on a cosey directly in front of her before stepping away to grab a plate for her. She was tempted to take it in her hands and jam it into her mouth, to show him just how much she relished this and hated it all the same.

“Thank you, little sister,” Tom said, a plate and silverware in hand, before laying it in front of her. It was the first time he’d ever served her properly, not since she’d outgrown her frilly dresses and her picture books. It made her stomach flutter in a way it hadn’t in years.

Her veins were on fire, her nerves fluttering to life when her eyes caught his, the rich scent of the meal thick in her nostrils.

“Please help yourself. I already ate.”

Hermione was slow to move, her eyes glued to his. There was something there. A weight that settled over her like a wool coat in a wintery night.  She didn’t want to look away, couldn’t look away even if she’d wanted to because he was _looking_ at her—

His lips curved into a smile and the spell broke. Hermione slumped in her chair, her attention tearing away from his with an embarrassed heat on her cheeks.

 _Oh gods_.

Her hands clamped on the fork he’d brought and stabbed it into the omelette, all too aware of the eyes still boring into the side of her head.

Ignoring the sensation, Hermione dropped the omelette onto her plate, the juices pooling from the tongs of the fork down to where her fingers wrapped around it.

“Go on,” Tom said, looming above her like the shadow of an ancient tree. “You don’t want it to get cold, do you?”

Hermione didn’t hesitate to break a piece off, his eyes like a physical touch on her face. It was heady and unnerving in a way, his scrutiny. She wondered if how she felt was how deer felt before they were hunted, aware and yet not of the predators skulking in the shadows.

Hermione took her first bite.

Something rich and decadent exploded in her mouth. The flavor consumed her, her throat humming with delight at the way the cheese, the spices, and the onions all melded together in perfect harmony. Gooseflesh rippled over her arms despite herself, surprise and awe fluttering in her belly.

It was _delicious_.

Before she knew it, she was devouring it, shoving forkful after forkful of the meal into her mouth, its juices running down her chin. Normally, she’d never be this uncouth and impolite at the table. She had manners, was nothing but _proper_ in the eyes of her parents, but—

With Tom’s eyes on her, Hermione lost all semblance of propriety.

She chewed and swallowed it all down, glutting herself on the food.

It wasn’t until her plate was empty, the back of her tongue coated with the remnants of the seasoning Tom had used, that she surfaced. And god, how she wished she hadn’t.

Tom hadn’t stopped looking at her. His eyes were burning into her face, more than the flush of blood on her cheeks, than the swell of something uncomfortable and unwanted in the pit of her stomach.

_God, what have I done?_

“My, you were famished, little sister,” Tom said after a moment, his hand sliding across the table to remove her plate like a wonderful host. Her stomach roiled at the pleased note in his words, watching from the corners of her eyes how he leaned in so close his breath fanned across her cheeks.

“You ate it all up.”

A pained smile stretched over her lips, too tight and thin. Her stomach was roiling, her insides churning because he was watching her and—

“It was rather good, Tom,” Hermione said after a beat, fingers twitching into tight fists at her sides. When she had dropped them away from the table, she didn’t know. “I never knew you could cook.”

A beat of silence followed after that, and it took everything within her not to say anything more. The inside of her cheek stung where her teeth clamped around the skin, chewing it raw. His eyes were on _her_. He was looking and looking and looking, and she didn’t know what to do. Whether to look back, to give in to the impulse compelling her to turn, or to refuse.

She opted for the latter.

“Neither did I. I suppose I have a natural affinity for it.”

The words were like a slap to the face, and Hermione twisted around, anger and something painful, _acidic_ , churning in her stomach.

_Natural affinity._

Tom was good at everything. She shouldn’t have been surprised that he could master even this, that he could—

Hermione’s lips stretched into a vicious expression, her teeth like glass in her mouth as she appraised him.

He was leaning toward, face so close she could count each of the lashes of his eyes, could see the limbal ring of his irises, notice how the outer corners were darker than the brown center.

She hated that she found it so fucking _pretty_.

“I’m not surprised. You _are_ a prodigy. One doesn’t get a full ride to Cambridge at your age unless they’re capable.”

The words burned, stung, and still, she held her smile in place. Envy and awe and anguish like a cocktail of medication threatening to propel her into hysterics.

Tom only smiled.

It did not meet his eyes.


	3. Hot Chocolate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Note: Nothing sexual will happen when Hermione is still a minor. The perspective is third-person limited, and so, we’re confined to her perceptions (accurate or not) of her brother.
> 
> That said, enjoy the chapter!

A breath caught in her lungs, the weight of it burning from her diaphragm up to her esophagus. It was like smoke, the wisp of its tendrils curling in her throat like it was alive. And maybe, it was. Perhaps, in the time that she’d sucked in her breaths, closed her eyes to calm the rapid beating of her heart, something had crawled into her neck. **  
**

“Sister? Is something the matter?”

The way he said that title was like winter’s cold breath on her face, light and all-encompassing. Unsettling and refreshing at the same time.  

A fifteen-year old Hermione tried not to shudder, eyes opening to cast, what she hoped, was an even look at her brother.

He was sitting at the kitchen table, where her father typically sat in the mornings. It wasn’t uncommon for him to do it, for him to claim that spot when her parents were away at work. Sometimes, it made her brain itch to see him there, but in other moments, with her eyes still crusted with sleep, she didn’t find anything amiss about it at all.

“O-oh, no. Not at all, I was just coming in to grab something from the kitchen.”

Tom looked at her, eyes appraising. It was like a physical touch, that look. Almost as though the weight of his eyes were fingers and hands, the touch of them enough to strip her bare, to unmake her with just a passing glance.

He was too beautiful, too  _wrong_. He had no business sitting there, in her father’s chair, a steaming cup on his left with a book splayed open in front of him. He shouldn’t have been there this morning, shouldn’t look that good with his dark eyes, wavy hair, and flawless skin.

Swallowing, Hermione passed the threshold where the living room became their kitchen, tearing her gaze away from Tom’s heavy stare and fixing it instead on the fridge scant inches from the table.

Silence enveloped her as she moved, her steps on the tiled floor enough to make her heart stutter in her chest, her hackles raise, because Tom was  _still looking at her_. He always did, as if he couldn’t do anything but look at her. His eyes drawn to her like magnets, keyed only to her specific presence.

Hermione hated when he did that, always had. It always made her breath hitch, her skin crawl with something she didn’t want to give a name to. Like she didn’t fit in her skin, her mind bound to flesh and bone and muscle that crushed her into their tiny confines.

Hermione tried not to think of it as she reached the cupboard, rummaging for her favorite cup.

The weight of Tom’s stare never left her back, even as a flush spread from her neck and up to her cheeks, visible even when she tried to fight the heat twisting over her cheeks.

It was unbearable, those eyes. The silence, no better, when now her breaths were the only thing breaking the quiet that had settled into her bones, slipping in between the gaps of her ribcage.

“Sister.”

Hermione froze, the sound of his voice, smooth as silk, enough to make even her breaths still. Her hands shook, mid-air, poised by the cup she was about to reach for on the topmost shelf.

“It’s too high up. Would you like some help?”

Hermione bit her tongue hard enough to bleed, adrenaline and something else rushing up and down her spine at the thought of him assisting her at all. That meant that he would have to get close to her, that he would have to touch her, somehow, when he passed the cup over to her hands.

She didn’t want that, even if a voice, too sultry and soft to be hers, said the opposite, murmuring that she’d  _very_  much want his help.

“That’s not necessary! It’s quite alright,  _Tom_ ,” she said, unable to bear to say the word ‘ _brother_.’ Because this feeling in the pit of her stomach, twisting and writhing like something  _alive_ , was not something she should feel for her brother. It wasn’t right, it was–

“Nonsense, sister. We both know you can’t reach that shelf.”

At the sound of his chair screeching, the legs of it scratching on the floor, Hermione jumped. She couldn’t help herself, not when the room fell into heavy silence once again.

Tom’s footsteps silent, always so silent even when he was taller now, older. One would think that after years of living with him, she’d be attuned to his very presence.

But she wasn’t. Not by a long shot. Tom was like a ghost, a preternatural creature that was unreal, even while standing in the very same room.

A shadow fell over her on the shelf, then, and Hermione swallowed hard. His body pressed along her back, his hand emerging from around the wild curls hanging loosely on her head to reach for the cup her fingers were too short to even graze.

He enveloped the cup in his hand, large and white and spidery, and plucked it from the shelf. Hermione’s throat went dry when he lowered it, pressing it against her fingers. If he noticed them trembling, he didn’t comment on it, his other hand emerging from the other side of her hand to coax her fingers into taking it.

His touch was like lightning on her skin, and Hermione shuddered, trembling even as her mind screamed for her to move, to snatch the cup away from his hand and cut the contact. 

“There you are,” Tom murmured, lips so close to her ear that the warmth of his breath curled over the shell. Hermione could scarcely breathe.

And then, just as his presence had come, he was gone.

The heat of his hands, the weight of his lips on her ear, vanished. Cold air replaced his touch, and Hermione let out the breath lodged in her esophagus, hoping that it didn’t sound as loud as it did through the rush of blood in her ears.

_It’s over. It’s over._

Hermione squeezed the cup in her hand, tight enough that her knuckles went white, that they  _ached_ , and then, with her mind urging her to calm, she said:

“Thank you.”

It was a weak sound, more a hiss, but Hermione knew Tom had heard it.

He heard everything.


	4. Bow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
> 
> I am thankful for the kindness and support expressed by so many fans of this ship. I thought I might show my gratitude in the only way I can with an update :)

Hermione’s rucksack bit into her shoulder as she walked the short distance between the bus stop and her house. It was a common theme. Normal. 

It was what she did every single day after school, always leaving the safety of those four walls at the latest possible hour to avoid  _ him _ . 

Tom was back for the holidays, at the behest of her parents. All the more reason to linger the classroom, undisturbed. But even she knew that she couldn’t push it, make it known just how perturbed he made her.

Her parents were not going to be there for the holidays, they had said. Their business was taking them elsewhere, they had reassured and sighed with all the sadness they could muster.

It did nothing to quell her anxieties. Their assurances were nothing in the grander scheme of things because they didn’t  _ know _ . 

Without them, that meant that it was just her and Tom for the duration of the month. Alone. No buffer or barrier between their interactions. He’d be  _ home _ , waiting. 

And she, with nowhere else to go, had no choice but to see him there. Even the school gates were no barrier to the onslaught of his attentions, not when it closed for the holidays too.

Not that school was necessarily a safe haven. He had gone to the same school she had. She was his shadow, following closely behind the same path he had taken, unable to outshine him when he had been the  _ first _ . Those walls smelled of him, and, if she tried hard enough, she could see him there—

Poised and composed, sitting in the back row of the classroom because there was no need for him to idle in the front of the room.

Truly, there was no escaping him. She could go nowhere without something to remind her of him, something to make her  _ think _ of those dark eyes and lips curved into a smile he did not mean. He’d smeared his essence onto the walls, run his fingers along the brick exterior, branding it in ways that no other dared to dream.

It was silly to think that she could ever be truly free of him. Yet still, she hoped.

She was fifteen and no closer to understanding what she felt every time she saw him. It was like the squirming of maggots in a corpse, that feeling. Their little bodies curling and writhing inside her, chewing and gnawing at dead skin. She’d seen it once before, watching from behind a glass lens how those worms gorged themselves on dark skin—riveted by how closely the blackened edges of that skin resembled Tom’s eyes.

Hermione wondered if she was dead for feeling this way. If, somehow, from the moment Tom had come knocking on her parents’ door, drenched in rainwater and tears, that she’d died when she first laid eyes on him.

She might as well have, if she hadn’t. With his presence, she’d lost something of herself.

Hermione stopped in front of her door, the shrubbery and the flower bed on either side of the door one that she saw every single day. This was her home.

And yet, it wasn’t. 

It wasn’t home when mum and dad weren’t there. When only Tom was there, sitting inside, on vacation from school.

She didn’t bother knocking, bending at the knee to drag the spare key from under the mat and opening the door. 

The hinges whined like she’d put too much force into the pull, as if she’d nearly torn the door from its place in the wall rather than gently open it. She never wanted to make too much noise, to make her presence stand out more than was necessary. Here, in her home that wasn’t, she didn’t want to be seen.

She stepped inside and the warm breath of the heater greeted her. It was freezing outside, her toes and fingertips ice cold even when dressed from head to toe in wool. It was funny how her insides felt colder in this house than it ever did under the mercies of the subzero temperatures outside.

“Sister?”

Hermione had barely stepped into the room before his voice rung out. It was soft and authoritative. She’d have given her arm, yanked it straight out of its socket with a smile on her lips, to have had another moment without having to see him. At least one more second to gather herself, to take off her wool coat and drape on the mask of the loving sister that didn’t see that there was something  _ off  _ about her older brother—

_ Different father, different mother, but married into the family years ago; lost and later found on their doorsteps, gangly-limbed and towering above her. _

“Yes, it’s me,” Hermione said back, wishing that she didn’t, that she could just ignore him and go about her business. She had tons of homework to do: math and science equations to solve well into the late evening to pass her classes with the highest marks.

She knew none of that would get done now. 

“Come to the kitchen, would you? I’ve something for you.”

Gooseflesh rippled over her arms at the delight in his voice, at the bite of mischief chasing after the little syllables. The words, from a bird’s eye view, were harmless and innocent. But when those words belonged to Tom, they were anything but.

There was something he was planning, and Hermione didn’t want to find out.

Still, against her better judgment, contrary to the screaming of her instincts urging her to head upstairs and away from the kitchen, she went. Tethered to his words, as if there were a string clasped around her waist that he had the end of. He tugged, and she followed.

“Coming.”

She kicked off her shoes by the door, a habit that her mum had pushed for, demanded. A clean house was a beautiful house, she would say. Often said, in fact, on these wintery days where snow and mud became one—the dirt crusting beneath the groove of her shoes with each step that she took.

If only her mother knew that there was simply no getting rid of the stains in this house, not when she’d invited her step-brother into her home: the sin, the dirt, and the mud all in the beautiful shape of Tom Riddle. There was nothing she could do that could get him out.

Hermione stopped at the threshold of the kitchen, mouth screwing into an uncomfortable smile at the sight of Tom’s back, a new apron strapped around his waist that she did not recognize. At another juncture of her life, she might have asked, might have tried to pry his skull open with her tongue to uncover his secrets.

Hermione didn’t bother now. He’d never tell the truth. His answers were riddles.

“Have a seat. I’ve made you something special.”

Swallowing the lump that formed in her throat on the walk over, Hermione crossed that barrier where kitchen met living room, knowing now that she could not escape. Not for a time, not until Tom deemed it fine to let her go and run along to do her homework.

How she hated his power over her.

She pulled a chair from beneath the table, the screeching of its legs cutting even through the rush of blood traveling up from racing heart to her brain and back. 

_ Push and pull, push and pull _ .

Tom turned around from the kitchen counter, hands gloved, holding a metal tray with a single pie at its center. It was baked to perfection, as was customary. Golden flecks glinted over the bread, the steam visible even from where she stood at the kitchen table. 

Hermione sat without thought, not looking at Tom— _ never looking him in the eye because then he would see _ —and smiled. The rich smell of meat and butter choked her.

If Tom noticed it, noticed her swallow back saliva and hunger, he didn’t comment. 

“I’ve made you a meat pie. A special one for a special girl.”

Hermione tried not to shrink into herself when his eyes burned into her face, and still, she did not look him in the eyes, focusing instead on the skin between his brows. 

“Oh? Really? You didn’t have to—”

“Oh no,” Tom interrupted, a smile in his voice that made her neck heat up. She hated that voice, hated the way he made her feel dead and alive all at once, how the maggots came to life in the pit of her stomach reminding her that they’re  _ there _ . “It’s the least I could do for my darling  _ sister _ .”

Hermione flinched at the epithet.

Tom lowered the tray in front of her, tilting it so that she could stab at it with the fork he’d laid out on the table before she’d even gotten home. She reached for it, tremors running up her spine at the weight of his gaze on her, waiting for her to crumble beneath his stare.

Curling her fingers around the fork, she pushed its metal teeth into meat pie, mouth watering at how something richer, darker, flooded her nostrils, made her stomach heave with disgust and want, in equal measure.

Then, she was leaning forward and taking a bite, eyes fixed on the morsel she’d taken instead of Tom’s eyes on her.

The taste of onion and garlic bloomed on her tongue followed by spice. It wasn’t pepper, wasn’t salt, wasn’t anything she could put a name to. 

Her throat constricted, toes curling in her shoes, when Tom let out a pleased hum. The sound was like a shock of electricity, a live wire rushing from her feet and up to her head. She was drunk off the sound, repulsed at how easily it made her lose herself.

“Do you like it?” Tom murmured, voice closer now, richer. It made her insides clench and unclench, her teeth throb in her mouth that had nothing to do with the burn in her cheeks or the fiery juices of the meat scalding her tongue.

Hermione swallowed it up, the bite, sinking her fork to lift the whole pie off the tray, to eat it like the little savage she was, in his eyes. 

“It’s...as delicious as always.”

Her voice was raw and spent, but it did not compare to the burn in her esophagus when Tom placed a hand atop her shoulder, his warmth seeping into her sweater and eating her alive. It was a rarity when Tom touched her.

He kept his distance, her brother. Always careful to give her room to spread her wings, to let her flit about like a free bird in the morning air, unafraid that she’ll never return.

But Hermione knew better. This was all an illusion. His time away at Cambridge was only a reprieve; it was hardly a permanent solution to the chokehold he had her in.

“Truly? I will take note of that,” Tom said, squeezing her shoulder between his fingers. Hermione tried not to think about the weight of that hand, at the way those fingers made her cheeks flush with something that had nothing to do with the steam of the meat pie under her nose. “It always warms my heart to know that you appreciate and enjoy my cooking.”

Hermione’s stomach heaved, as if that meat pie wanted to crawl right out of her esophagus and greet its maker. She held it back. Taking that moment to take another bite, to chew and swallow more of the pie, thoroughly cleaning up the metal surface of the fork.

It was better to simply eat, at times. To give him this pleasure rather than refuse it. 

Otherwise, it would leave her with the option of starving herself, of clutching onto her cramping stomach, dreading each pang because it brought her closer to the kitchen, to her  _ brother _ , who’d made a home in that little nook.

It was the center of the house, the heart of Hermione’s home. Tom could see it all from there, could see when she left and when she returned. 

Tom was a smart man.

After one final swallow, the fork was cleaned. Polished to perfection by her tongue, leaving no droplet of meat or crumb of bread unconsumed.

And then she looked up at him, his dark eyes compelling her to look without him having to command her, to give the order. 

His eyes were nearly black now. No limbal ring or speck of brown to give the illusion that his eyes were warmer than they actually were.

Hermione wondered if she should have left something for him to eat, a piece at least. He looked famished,  _ hungry _ . 

The maggots in her stomach curled at the sight of it, terror and awe and delight at the attention making her blood melt through her bones in the worst way. His hand was still on her, his fingers still curled over her arm where the strap of her rucksack had bitten into the curve of her shoulder. 

She hated him. Truly. Hated how she died and came alive beneath his stare.

“Would you like more?” Tom asked after a beat of silence, eyes on hers, lashes so long and beautiful that Hermione could not look away. She broke her rule again, poring over the gleam in those eyes, over the darkness at the center, threatening to devour her in one single swallow—

And perhaps, he would. He already had by simply existing.

_ Like a black hole... _

Her throat was dry as sandpaper, the meat pie like a lump in the back of her throat.

Still, she smiled at him, all teeth. It was all she had, that smile. Innocent and warm and naive. Everything that she was not, none of what she  _ felt _ .

She was a sinner, would burn for what lurked in the back of her mind, for what she saw in Tom’s face when he didn’t notice her, for what she saw in Tom’s gut, intestines exposed like an open wound right down the middle—

“Yes, I’d like some more.”

If she wasn’t dead already, beneath the smolder of his gaze, she might as well be.

_ Death by immolation _ , she’d read once.

_ Like Joan of Arc. _


	5. Hog

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is graphic. I will not tell you what lies ahead, but if you're the sort to be squicked out by detailed depictions of blood and other disturbing imagery, tread cautiously.
> 
> Additional warning: Vomiting.
> 
> Things are now going into motion.
> 
> AN: if you got double notified, it's because I had to delete and repost. AO3 is a pain in the arse when you post from the drafts, even toggling the post date doesn't seem to fix the issue.

Hermione lingered in her father’s study, relishing in the thick scent of books and wet ink. It was her home away from home, the only place Tom did not see fit to disturb her.

Why this was, she didn’t know.

But oh, how she relished it, delighted in the echo of the lock settling over the door, of the floorboards creaking with her every step. Here, there was no Tom to muddy and smear his presence along the walls. This was irrefutably  _dad’s_. A place free of the weight of Tom's eyes, of the mouthwatering smell of his cooking.

 _Though_ —

Hermione frowned at the picture frame set atop the desk, all of their smiling faces staring back at her. Tom was standing beside her, his hand on her shoulder. She was smiling and so was he, his hair curling over his head in smooth waves that belied a softer nature than he truly possessed.

She had felt the weight of his touch for days after that photo was taken, unnerved by the groove of those nails, at the warmth of his body pushed against her side.

It was what the photographer had demanded, barking tight-lipped orders that they stand closer. And oh, how Hermione’s shoulder had wept bloody tears after that, from how hard she’d scrubbed, and scrubbed, and  _scrubbed_.

If only her loofah could’ve reached inside her to erase the way that hand had made her burn.

— _the room wasn’t entirely free_.

With a snap of her hand, Hermione set the frame face-down on the desk, unable to stand to look them, at  _him_ , with those eyes that saw more than they should. That both unmade and undid her with only a glance.

She didn’t need the reminder that just outside those doors, her brother was roaming its walls. That although she was free of him for the time being, he was never too far away. He was her shadow and every dark thought she ever possessed.

How could she ever dream of being free of him? When he was there, perhaps sitting in the kitchen, with those hands smoothed over the porcelain of his mug, its contents a bright red?

_Red._

She often wondered what he drank when she was most weak. Her eyes drawn to the cup as he pressed it against his lips, his pink tongue lapping up the droplets unconscientiously. Wondered, if the red in the cup, steaming with heat and vapor, was fresh blood tapped straight from a vein, brewed and prepared to his tastes.

He had called it rooibos tea when she’d asked him once, unable to overcome her curiosity, but she still doubted the truth of his reply. The slow smile that had stretched along his face had been like an abandoned roadway.

She knew better than to believe him.

Because all he ever did, all he ever said, was a lie. How could she trust his word when his eyes were tinged with laughter, when his own lips breathed only mocking sincerity? A snub, a knife, to both her intelligence and youth?

Hermione turned, disgusted with herself for the direction her thoughts had turned, stomach roiling in the way it always did when Tom inevitably bled into the soft mush of her brain. She should have been reading, poring over the books that her father had collected over the years, had  _denied_ her as a little girl because she was too young— _too innocent_ —to read them.

But instead, she was thinking about  _Tom, Tom, Tom_ —

The boy that made sitting for a meal torturous, that made her skin flush and heat up, her insides curdling like spoilt yogurt in her belly.

_Thump. Thump._

She nearly tripped over herself at the sound, the hairs of her arms standing on end because there was no one else, no other that could be standing behind that door—

_No._

He wasn’t supposed to interrupt, not when she was here. She bit her tongue hard enough to bleed, to stifle the roar of frustration and the rush of excitement that seared her nerve-endings like a fat steak on a skillet.

“Darling, do you have a moment?”

Her hackles rose at the tone, at how adoring and sweet it sounded from the other side of that door. Her fingers cut crescents into the meat of her palms, frustration, rage, and loss like a wildfire in her lungs. She was burning up from the inside, and her brother was the one who’d stuffed that match into her gullet.

“ _Sister_?”

A breath whooshed out of her lungs, and Hermione straightened, rolling her shoulders back to stop their tremors, to right the wrong of her posture, to mend the fissure his soft voice cut down her middle. She wasn’t prepared, but ready or not, Tom was waiting for an answer.

“A-ah, yes. Is there something you needed?”

Her voice splintered, cracked over the edges. She swallowed. The glass in her neck refused to go down.

“If it isn’t any trouble.” Tom began, voice contrite. Hermione didn’t believe it, would kill to be able to see through walls just to witness what expression he actually wore at this moment. Tom wasn’t capable of sheepishness. “I’m in need of your assistance in the kitchen.”

She swore something foul beneath her breath, teeth catching on her bottom lip once the “ _fuck_ ” rolled off her tongue. It stung, those words. They always did when Tom drove her to this. She wasn’t supposed to curse, to imagine what it would be like to push a steak knife against his lips, to slice his mouth open so that he could never wear that stupid  _smile_ ever again.

_No one will call you handsome now..._

As quickly as the image of his smiling teeth red with blood flashed before her eyes, it was gone. Her shame the only evidence that she’d ever had the thought at all.

“I’ll be right there,” Hermione said, blinking away the guilty tears that gathered at the corners of her eyes, the violent image of Tom smiling with his lips cut up the sides enough to make her heave. Something bitter and acidic clumped in the back of her tongue, and Hermione sucked in a heavy breath to stop herself from being sick all over dad’s study.

_Another room completely ruined._

If she stayed another moment in here, Hermione knew for a fact she would be sick. She couldn’t bear it, couldn’t stand being in this bloody study when she’d just thought of—

Sucking in more greedy breaths, fighting back the wave of nausea climbing up her throat, Hermione traveled from the desk to the door within minutes. Her shaking fingers unlocked the door, the reality of what was to come like a moving picture in the back of her head.

Her eyes dropped instantly to the floor, and she counted to ten and back to sooth the rush of adrenaline shooting up her spine.

There was a shadow beneath the door. A familiar one. She’d stood behind that shade long enough to know who it belonged to. Hermione didn’t even try to hide from it,  _from him_. Wherever she was, he was soon to follow.

Or was it the other way around?

Steeling herself, she yanked the door open, afraid and yet not, of what she would see. Her stomach curled at the creak of the door, her legs turning to jelly.

It took everything in her  to not take a step back and shut the door in his face. The sight that unfolded before made her want to scream.

Tom’s hands were on either side of the door, his body smack in the center and blocking her from getting out without brushing up against him. His eyes were dark and hooded, a smile on his lips that was so sweet it could make teeth rot.

His eyes appraised her, roving over her face and down to her stocking-clad feet and up again. Hermione thought she might melt right there, combust into flames at the slow perusal. The maggots in her stomach curled in themselves, their fluttering like the rapid beating of her heart.

She hoped he couldn’t hear the way they squirmed inside her, couldn’t see how furiously her heart worked to pump much needed blood through her body.

Tom’s smile grew on his face, his eyes flashing with humor and something else, something she refused to name. He stepped back from the door, and Hermione almost slumped with relief at the distance he’d put between them, even if only by an additional few centimeters.

Separation was separation, no matter how meager it was. Hermione had grown to appreciate these small things when it came to Tom.

“Come along.”

Tom winked, a look of pure delight rippling across his features before he turned away from her and started down the hall.

Hermione’s breaths were loud to her ears, as if she couldn’t draw up enough air, couldn’t bloody  _breathe_.

Tom’s movements were slow and agile, like a cat’s, as he walked. Like the coils of a snake, slithering their way from the hall and down, down,  _down_ to the stairs at the opposite end of the corridor. It was quiet, her breaths superseding the flutter of Tom’s button-down shirt and slacks.

_Like a ghost..._

Hermione pressed her hand against her chest to settle the beating of her heart, swallowing back saliva and self-loathing at how much she appreciated his silky movements, before she followed.

It wouldn’t do to linger for longer than she needed to. Tom wouldn’t say anything about it, but later, in the kitchen, in his  _domain_ , it would be a different story. He’d ambush her. He’d drop the most succulent dish in front of her and make her  _sing_ —

_You’ll tell me all your secrets, won’t you?_

Tom’s head disappeared down the stairs and Hermione rushed, spurred by her own horror and curiosity. Best to get it over with, to see what it was that he wanted.

Her footsteps were loud on the floor, even if only stocking-clad. Her weight made the house stir, grind and moan, as if her presence were torturous. Perhaps, it was. She often wondered if she was a bother, a torture to her parents.

She wasn’t good enough, after all. Her marks weren’t perfect, never as consistent as Tom’s. And even when they were, when she’d sliced her thumbs to bleed knowledge onto the pages, smeared sweat and dribbled tears onto the edges of her work, Tom did it all effortlessly.

He didn’t bleed at all.

Her breaths came heavy and unevenly as she forced herself to move down the steps of the stairs, losing Tom in the narrow hallway, his feet the last thing she saw before he vanished behind a wall. She nearly tripped on the steps, rushing after him, her hands catching on the wooden railing and her feet dangling below her.

“Is everything alright?”

Tom called out, his voice loud and clear even through various layers of wall between them. Hermione forced herself to smile even if he couldn't see her, hoisting herself up on shaky knees and arms and renewing her descent.

_Just keep moving, don’t make him wait._

“I-it’s nothing. Slippery step is all,” Hermione said, not bothering to lie to him about what happened. He wouldn’t have asked if he didn’t already know the answer. He had this assurance, this _confidence_ , about him that always made it apparent.

He didn’t respond. Hermione didn’t expect him to.

She dropped down the last bit of stair, skidding on the wooden floor as she rushed, turning a corner and coming to a halt in the middle of the living room.

_Oh._

From her vantage point, she had an unfettered view of the kitchen. And there, lying atop the table, white as snow, was the body of a dead pig.

 _What the fuck_ —

“I hope it’s not too much. There was a wonderful sale at the ranch a friend of mine owns. And well.” Tom’s voice emanated from the kitchen, carrying itself to her eardrums with ease despite the rush of blood flooding her ears.

She was speechless. This was not what she was expecting to find. A dead pig splayed out like some virgin sacrifice on the same table they  _ate_ from was not your average sight.

“I couldn’t help myself. We could make wonderful cuts of meat from the body. I know just how  _much_ you favor pork,” Tom finished, and Hermione tried not to throw up at his knowing tone.

She did, in fact, like pork the best. It was easy to make, and Tom had a knack for it—often crushing the meat and preparing things from scratch at the butcher shop he worked part-time for.

Stunned, Hermione began to move, following Tom’s voice like a sailor followed the calls of a siren. It was obvious he wanted her there for something. He  _had_ said he needed her help earlier when he’d ripped her away from her refuge—

She didn’t stop when the smell of raw meat assaulted her senses, didn’t hesitate at the sight of blood dripping from the table, the plastic encasing the body doing nothing to halt the droplets that hit the tiled floor.

It was only when she was right beside the pig, its belly up and bound, that she paused. She couldn’t tear her eyes from the body, never having seen a dead animal of this size before. When she would dissect animals for lessons, they were always small, no bigger than the palm of her hand—

But this pig, it was  _huge_.

“What is it that you want me to do?” Hermione asked, throat scratchy and raw. She had a vague inkling, a suspicion forming in the back of her mind, but she wasn’t certain.

What if it was wrong, that thought? What if her brother didn’t actually intend for her to—

“I need you to extract the organs. I’ve washed the body and removed the hairs, but I’ll need your help with the extraction process.”

Hermione sucked in a sharp breath, fingers beginning to shake because never in her life had she been asked to do something this-this barbaric.

_Barbaric._

That was what this was, what he was asking her to do, but no, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t right to call this barbaric when she herself  _ate_ from this creature. It was her favorite, she had said countless times over a plate of bacon, the scent of applewood and maple syrup enough to make her quiver with anticipation.

She was being a hypocrite, a  _fraud_ , for calling this barbaric. If she had the courage, the muster to eat it when she couldn’t see the animal, couldn’t see where it had come from then—

Shrugging off the disgust and horror and guilt churning in her stomach, Hermione licked her lips and opened her mouth to say:

“I’m afraid I don’t know how to do that. I don’t think I’ll be of much help,” Hermione whispered, the hairs of her arms prickling with unease when Tom moved, his presence blinking into existence as if her uncertainty had been the magic to summon him.

_Like a shark lured in by the scent of blood in the water…_

His shadow stopped at her back, and Hermione swallowed hard when his arm inched its way into view, a large and sharp butcher’s knife in his grip. It glimmered beneath the harsh light, nearly blinding her.

“You’re almost sixteen and one of the brightest girls I know. Here—”

Hermione gasped when he brought the knife to her, gently pushing the handle into her grip and closing her fingers, one-by-one, around the hilt. His touch was like the lick of a flame on her skin, and Hermione wondered if those fingers would come away black and aching, blistered and charred from his touch once he let her go.

“I’ll show you.”

His hand guided her shaking one over the pig’s sternum, and Hermione’s breaths halted. Tom’s breaths were fanning across her neck from how closely he stood behind her, and Hermione wanted nothing more than to pull away, than to run back upstairs into her parent’s bedroom and—

_Do what?_

They weren’t home. Wouldn’t be back until the torturous month of December met its end.

Her mouth parted, throat thick with a question she didn’t want to ask but knew that she should, that she couldn’t stop from crawling out of her mouth.

“But  _why_ a whole pig, why are you—”

Tom laughed behind her, his chest vibrating at her back, before he forced her hand down and the tip of the knife buried into the pig’s skin, disappearing into the skin. Hermione’s heart raced, her other hand coming up to clench around the edge of the table to ground herself, to find purchase.

_Oh, gods, what am I doing?_

“A colleague of mine suggested it. They say the meat is much fresher,  _cleaner_ , when you take it from the whole as opposed to buying it in separate parts,” Tom said with a hitch in his breath. Hermione drank in that tiny sound, categorized it, studied it, and filed it away for later inspection when she wasn’t plunging a bloody  _knife_ into a pig’s chest.

“It is also a cultural point for many South American and Caribbean cultures. Often, the main dish in a time of celebration. They often roast a whole a pig, inviting guests to take a stab at the steaming meat. It’s actually quite fascinating.”

Fascinating was not the word she would use.

Perhaps, at a party, this would be more interesting and far less disconcerting. But  _here_ , with Tom's fingers wrapped around hers, it was a far more sinister experience.

Hermione let him guide her, let him bury the knife deep into the meat until the crunch of bone hitting metal assaulted her ears. Hermione thought she might be sick.

“Now then, careful not to rupture any of the organs. It would ruin the meat,” Tom whispered into her ear at the same time he retracted his hand, cold air replacing the heat of his grip.

She swallowed and closed her eyes. She didn’t know if she could do this, if she could really cut an innocent creature open—

“It’s alright if you cannot do it. It isn’t for the faint of heart, as you might find, little sister.”

Hermione stiffened, something feral and violent replacing the hesitation, like venom blackening tissue and muscle.

_Little sister._

_Little sister._

Hermione released a harsh breath from her nostrils, vision tinted red with fury, before she rearranged her grip on the knife for better leverage, for a smoother slice along its skin, and pulled back.

The skin ripped away like butter, fat and muscle succumbing to the cruel teeth of her knife and her anger.

She didn’t stop until the pig was broken open, until she could see into its insides, pink and red and bloody. Like the red tea that Tom sipped at every morning, like the blood that had forced its way to the surface on his finger when he had nicked his thumb.

_Tom’s smiling face frozen into a mask of death._

Everything came rushing back to her.

The stench of blood assaulted her senses, and Hermione gagged, dropping the knife onto the table with a loud clatter as she made to back away from it, her eyes tearing away from the gaping maw of its belly and the rivulets of blood that began to pool in its chest cavity.

_Plit. Plit. Plit._

Her back met something warm and solid, and then there were hands on her shoulders, restraining her, holding her in place. Her blood went cold at the touch, at the familiar  _beat, beat, beat_ of a heart thumping at her back, at the too large hands on her.

_No._

Bile crawled up her throat, and it was only by her will alone that she didn’t throw up all over the kitchen floor.

“Shh, it’s alright,” Tom murmured above her, hands massaging her in a comforting manner. But she was anything but comforted. She wanted to scream, to curse herself for what she’d done, for what she’d _allowed_ herself to do, in a fit of rage. “You did well.”

Tears burned at the corners of her eyes, but she did not let them fall. She bit them back, swallowed the sobs until they were stones in her belly, weighing her down.

“It gets easier with time. The first time I had to open up an animal it had not been seamless.”

Hermione sucked in greedy breaths, trembling and shaking, her eyes staring unseeingly at the pig. All she could picture, could imagine, was the red, red,  _red_ of its innards, of how easy its skin parted for her, obeyed the righteous cut of the blade.

 _Oh god, oh god, oh god_ —

“They are such defenseless creatures. It’s almost cruel how their suffering is often delayed.”

Hermione closed her eyes, shuddering when Tom let her shoulders go and stepped away from her. Her legs shook, but they didn’t cave beneath her. She was rooted in place, frozen into a mask of self-loathing and disgust.

The image of the pig laid out on the table bright and malignant only became stronger when she shut her eyes. It refused to leave. It clung to her eyelids, wedged itself into the marrow of her bones until she was reliving the moment, cutting the poor thing down the middle with a  _smile_ on her face.

A question burned in her esophagus, like bile and dread. Hermione swallowed around the lump to get the words out, to ask the question she’d been dreading to ask.

_Often, the main dish in a time of celebration..._

“What are we celebrating?” Her voice was a whisper, melting into the white noise of her blood rushing up to her ears and back, bleeding into the soft puffs of air that echoed in the kitchen. It wasn’t her breaths, she knew. She’d stopped breathing a long time ago.

It was all Tom.

Always ever him.

There was a pause where neither of them said a thing, Hermione’s fingers clenching into fists at her side, the same sickening violence, the same taunting voice in the back slicing into the pulpy layers of her brain, like a steel knife plunging into a milky sternum—

_Admit it._

Hermione’s tongue ached with how hard her teeth closed around it, a scream and a cry fighting for dominance in her lungs.

 _Admit that for one moment_ —

Hermione rushed to the sink before she could hear Tom’s answer, the contents of her stomach burning up her throat and nose as she vomited into the sink, choking and gasping for air. Spittle ran like rivulets on the corners of her mouth, but Hermione did nothing to swipe them away.

— _you imagined that it was Tom you were cutting into_.

Hermione never heard Tom’s response.

Only the loud cacophony of pure delirium met her ears.

**Author's Note:**

> Sporadically updated. 
> 
> Don't expect these to updated on a schedule.


End file.
